Location: Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota
Pay Range: $55k to $70k/year w/ benefits
United Today, Stronger Tomorrow, an Upper Mid- and Mountain West organizing project, is seeking to hire a LOCAL full-time organizer based in western Iowa, eastern South Dakota, or eastern Nebraska (Siouxland). The organizer will test the potential to build and run a new multi-state regional organizing project to address issues affecting the Siouxland Region and to ensure that federal funds are directed towards community needs, in particular infrastructure and energy funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and the CHIPS & Science Act.
The project’s goals are: 1) identify the top issues impacting communities, workers, and people in the state and in a set of counties and how new federal funding coming into the Siouxland Region can address those issues 2) help lead a process to build a base of impacted people, and 3) initiate a campaign development process that leads to a winnable campaign at the county and potentially state level.
Job Description: The organizer will build and manage member-run, local, organizing committees in the region, and will work with its members to conduct campaigns on issues that are widely and deeply felt across a diverse regional constituency. In addition to base building, the organizer will develop relationships with existing organizations who are potential campaign coalition partners, as well as build upon the 4+ years of UTST work, relationships, and leadership development in this region. The organizer will develop and train committee members, build a campaign plan, and manage the campaign in collaboration with the project partners. The issues, demands, targets, and strategies will be developed by the local organizing committee.
Job Responsibilities:
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Build a base of people and organizations into local and state campaigns focused on delivering concrete benefits to communities in the Siouxland region.
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Identify new pipelines of leaders and activists for campaigns.
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Conduct one-on-ones with potential leaders and build leadership development programs.
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Convene issue committees to be co-facilitated by member leaders.
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Manage a texting program.
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Moderate Facebook groups and other social channels specific to the project.
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Identify leadership roles and support leaders in doing community organizing work (training, check-ins, and management, for example).
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Organize and work with leaders to lead meetings and briefings.
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Implement an earned media strategy to garner local press and media attention.
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Organize research teams that can identify policy solutions and communicate them to a general audience.
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Learn and teach local political dynamics to organizing committee leaders.
Qualifications: The ideal candidate is someone who has strong experience in base building and leadership development, especially with diverse communities; experience on an issue, policy, corporate, legislative, union, or administrative campaign; and interest in leading a campaign. We are open to considering people who do not have paid experience but a deep desire to learn community organizing and to improve their local community.
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2-4 years experience in base-building and building community leaders.
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Experience working on a campaign - preferably an issue, administrative, corporate, legislative, or unionization campaign.
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Experience managing projects, programs, or an organizing committee.
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Experience working in coalitions and/or with a set of organizations and partners.
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An ability to build and manage relationships with a wide array of stakeholders and to multitask different pieces of work.
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Experience building diverse teams and staffing workgroups and/or committees.
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A track record of recruiting, developing, and managing leaders and volunteers.
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The ability to implement digital organizing tools, tactics, and strategies.
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Strong writing skills.
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Experience working with media (writing press releases, pitching, and organizing press events) is preferred, but not required.
Technical qualifications:
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Experience / comfort working in Google Sheets (importing, exporting, cleaning data).
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Experience / comfort working with the rest of the Google Suite (Docs, Gmail, Slides, Forms, Drive).
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At least some experience working in EveryAction or other CRM: creating simple to complex searches, exporting, updating records, working with Events.
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Emailing: experience / comfort creating, setting up, and sending emails through an email client as with a CRM or Mailchimp.
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At least some experience working with a P2P texting tool like Spoke or Hustle.
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Tech resourcefulness: looks for answers online, asking colleagues if needed, does not get stuck or freeze if they don’t yet know how to do something.
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Willingness and aptitude to learn new tools and digital systems quickly; doesn’t get scared and does not avoid tech; embraces digital as a critical part of the work.
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Ability to drive long distances and attend national staff meetings is required. All work travel outside your immediate turf is also reimbursed.
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Working knowledge of EveryAction, Spoke texting tool, New Mode, and digital advertising is a plus but not required.
Salary Range: $55-70K DOE plus healthcare and other benefits.
Women, native/indigenous people, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people are strongly encouraged to apply.
To apply, please send a resume and cover letter to [email protected] that includes why you are interested in this position and how your experience can help build the project. PLEASE PUT SIOUXLAND ORGANIZER IN THE SUBJECT LINE.